


Bedtime stories

by Anuna



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Kissing, au in which nasty stuff never happened, bed sharing, none of it, post the well, season one based
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 12:15:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8143663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anuna/pseuds/Anuna
Summary: It's been three weeks since the beserker staff accident and Grant can't sleep.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My first contribution to the skyeward week is season one based fluff.

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Grant tells himself that seeking the door of Skye's hotel room, while she (and everyone else) are probably asleep is a sound tactical decision and that it has nothing with the sense of desperation which has firmly settled in by now.

  


It has been three weeks since the beserker staff accident and ever since then he hasn't gotten more than three hours of solid sleep in one go. He spent a lot of time staring at the ceiling, he wore himself out at the boxing bag, he tried not spending any time in his bed until he was absolutely tired, he even asked for sleeping pills (for which he was rewarded with a comment from Simmons about being responsible and doing the right thing and so on. He didn't go back to tell her that the pills had zero effect. Nothing.)

  


Until this mission and that point where he had to sit in a stakeout, hidden in the back of a van, and May was in another one across the street – and Skye was feeding them info through the comm link. At first it was just like any other time, except after some forty minutes he felt strange. Or rather he didn't feel it at first.

  


He fell _asleep._

  


During _a mission._

  


While listening to Skye's voice.

  


He was startled awake shortly after, when Coulson pointedly asked if he was allright. Later, when Fitz took over the comm Grant didn't fall asleep, even though his exhaustion was a lot more prominent. His mind wouldn't quiet down like it did when Skye was speaking.

  


He would have pegged it as a random event if it didn't happen two more times during next twenty four hours, which clearly meant there was a pattern. There was some kind of a connection between Skye's talking (God, she talked _too much_ ) and him falling asleep.

  


He knocked on her door and told himself that this was perfectly normal. That he shouldn't feel like an idiot.

  


Skye opened a moment later, dressed in too big pajamas, with a hairbrush in her hand. “Ward? Oh my God Ward, you look like cr -”

  


“Like crap?” he asked and even managed to smile a little, because she was right. He felt like crap. He probably looked like that as well.

  


“Well, I mean,t, not good. What happened to you?” she was asking, no, insisting that he'd tell her, and pulling him inside. He was secretly relieved that he didn't have to ask if he could come in.

  


“I, uh -” he paused after she closed the door and he looked around the room. The lights were low and there was just one bed, just like in his own room – big and soft and inviting. He was so tired – oh God, his body was aching all over, but so did his mind. He looked at her because she was the vocal one, the one who used and ruled the words. Maybe she could find the words for him. But she just kept searching his face with open worry and he somehow couldn't stand to be the reason of her feeling like that. “Can't sleep,” he said.

  


Skye gave him a confused look. Right. This was the part that he, master tactician, didn't figure out very well. If at all.

  


“I was just hoping you could help me,” he started, and right, that worked. Skye was someone who wanted to help others feel better. He looked at her tentatively, realizing that he had her undivided attention, but not just that – she looked at him tenderly, and with such caring, that it frightened him. People just didn't look at him like that.

  


“Sure. If I can,” she was saying, pulling his hand. Soon he was sitting on the bed next to her and he felt so exhausted, the room started to spin. That, if nothing else, helped him explain what was going on.

  


“Ever since the beserker incident... I can't really sleep,” he said, his eyes focused on his knee. “I sleep for two, three hours tops. And then …. I... don't.”

  


“Oh God,” Skye said. “Did you tell Jemma? Maybe she has some kind of pills or medication -”

  


“It didn't work,” he said. “I tried everything I know.”

  


“Then how can _I_ help you? Don't get me wrong I would really want to -”

  


“I fell asleep during stakeout. While... you were talking. Three times.”

  


Her brows drew together in an image of surprise. He was about to open his mouth and enter both of his feet because he didn't mean to say she was boring him to sleep. “I, uh, didn't mean to imply you annoyed me or something,” he said, realizing that heat was creeping up his neck and seeping into his cheeks. “It's... it was...,” she was watching him with curiosity in her eyes and a tiny smile playing on her lips and somewhere in the corner of her cheek was a touch of light amusement, one that meant he was dear and important to her. He _mattered._

  


He remembered what she was saying back then, the commentary she was making to him while he waited, small observations that meant she listened to him while they were preparing the plan and inside jokes only he would get and there was this sense of belonging associated to her voice. “It was... I felt safe,” he said, unable to explain it in precise words. He wasn't supposed to feel like that. He was a specialist, _designed_ to go in alone and get things done. He wasn't supposed to feel... need to feel safe.

  


But he _did_.

  


There was no use to contemplate the damage and the reason behind it. His training taught him that fixing whatever was wrong was the imperative. If this state of matters continued every mission he was on would be jeopardized. He'd put himself, and someone – or maybe everyone else – in danger. (Including Skye.)

  


And he couldn't let that happen.

  


“Hey... Ward,” she was saying, and he realized he lowered his face because she was tentatively reaching out and lifting his chin. And she was sitting closer, like really close, and his heart was pounding. Maybe she would tell him to go away. She had every right too. She wasn't his therapist or something.

  


Maybe he should have filed a request to see a therapist instead.

  


“There's no need to apologize,” she was saying instead, touching his hand like she did back in that Dublin bar. He drank himself into stupor that night which wasn't the best idea, because ever since then he wasn't able to sleep.

  


He passed out then, drunk and alone and woke up to a world where all of his insecurities, all of his loneliness had returned sharply into focus. Entirety of helplessness he felt in the past, which he couldn't compensate in present, no matter how good of an agent he was were right there. All the walls he had built were in vain.

  


“Ward, you're only human. And you've been though weird, upsetting crap. And you're still doing your job and not complaining and... if I were you, I'd be curled in a ball right now,” she said. Knowing her, getting to know what he truly was made of made him suspect that. Skye was tough. All kinds of thought that he wasn't and... that meant something in the grand scheme of things, and when she talked he listened. He _learned_ to listen and that meant something as well. “If anyone deserves to sleep, it's you. And well, if that requires a good night story, then a good night story you shall get,” she said, smirked a little and patted the bed they were already sitting on.

  


Grant's brain stopped in its tracks. The tactical genius that he was, he failed to work out this tiny little detail – how exactly should she put him to sleep? Sit next to his bedside and talk? Or maybe talk into the comm link? He decidedly didn't think about it, because there was that third option, the one Skye was implying. “Oh come on, Ward. You're a big boy. You can handle some innocent bed sharing,” she said lightly, and he knew he was blushing.

  


All thoughts about inappropriateness aside, the problem was he wanted it. The moment she offered him to talk he wanted it; he wanted that soft place to fall onto, but his fear was bigger. This seemed safer, a failsafe deal where he'd still be wrapped in the comfort of her voice. So he took off his shoes like she instructed him to and she turned down the light and didn't look when he stripped his jeans and crawled under the covers wearing boxers and a t shirt. She hopped onto bed and it felt normal, it felt like something people did in normal, regular lives without their hearts beating like battledrums. The bed was a bit narrow, and Grant was lying stiffly until Skye wiggled under the same blanket and relaxed, making it seem like all his awkwardness was unnecessary and somewhat silly.

  


“Okay, so, what should I tell you about?” she said, settling on her side with a smile. She moved her hair behind her ear and sunk deep into the pillow. He was about to ask something, but she seemed to wander off in her memories and told him about this little girl from orphanage, Alice – Something who was afraid of thunder. And thus Grant lost himself in Skye's voice and her childhood memories. No matter how lonely they sounded, they were thousand times better than his.

  


*

  


It was his sixth strange bed, or maybe seventh? He stopped counting. And another neat hotel room and post mission rest. This time around they had an additional day off and he was tempted to just stay in bed.

  


He woke slowly, which was strange for him. He trained himself long time ago to wake up all at once and be ready to react to whatever – but his times with Skye, spent in beds made for one, where it was all warm and soft and safe somehow kept him lulled into sleep. Part of him wanted to force him back into old habit of getting up all at once, maybe even punish him for indulging himself with things he shouldn't even have thought about, but his body was craving this.

  


He thought he'd feel rested after the first time he slept next to her. Well, he did, but the effect of a night spent sleeping after all those weeks of insomnia only made him realize how tired he really was. He managed to sleep on the bus a bit better, but he didn't dare sneaking into Skye's bunk, although he wanted to. After first time he managed to distract himself from that idea – but only until the next time.

  


At this point he was awaiting missions that included staying the night _after_ everything was done. Thankfully, he was in luck.

  


He was rested, now. He was content and his arms and legs were heavy and his mind was at peace. It wouldn't be until later, when he'd have to focus on immediate tasks and also on keeping bad memories at bay... and then he'd look at her and know comfort was _right there._ He definitely shouldn't be feeling like that, shouldn't rely on someone to feel safe, he should be ensuring safety for himself and everyone else.

  


Except he couldn't. There was no strength left in him to try and fight that fight.

  


That was exactly what he was scared of that night in Dublin. That and -

  


“You're thinking too loud,” Skye said, rolling from her side to her back and then to face him. And he was absolutely, completely screwed.

  


“What?”

  


“You're thinking,” Skye rubbed her face, opened her eyes and smiled. “Relax. You don't have to be anywhere.”

  


“I know,” he said. Her eyes looked so big in the morning light, and so close.

  


“No you don't. Your head is telling you you're in some kind of trouble,” she said. “Nope, don't bother denying it,” she added, propping her face on her palm and looking amusedly at him.

  


At some point during the night he had claimed the pillow and she was left without it. He could feel her toes touching his calf, could feel the rhythm of her breathing, the way the bed shifted as she did. And it was.... something he couldn't quite name. She was the voice inside his mind, the one he listened to when he needed to rest. She was close, in every sense of that word, and there was no freaking way for him to raise the walls that would protect him.

  


Protect him from what, he thought. Skye smiled. “There,” she said wisely, pointing at his head. Softly, her finger landed in the middle of his wrinkled forehead and she laughed, bright and carefree.

  


Her _touch,_ though.

  


The way he felt lighter and at peace, and at the same time, he felt like he was set on fire. Like he was about to burst if he didn't touch her in turn.

  


She slid her finger down the side of his face and he caught her hand and held it there, and this was the moment where he should have warned her off, told her that she shouldn't touch him like that, that her foot shouldn't be sliding up and along his calf... and he definitely shouldn't be rolling to his back as she moved and straddled him. Maybe he pulled her too. Maybe this was brewing between them ever since she poked his chest and defied his stare. Maybe it was just inevitable.

  


God, she was so tiny and light. Lightest burden he ever felt. His hand was lost in the curtain of her hair, reaching for her smile.

  


As his thumb slid across her lips she kissed it. He thought he would stop breathing, atop thinking and existing, _just stop_ alltogether. Except she rolled her hips and he became aware of how rapidly his body was reacting to her.

  


“We need to put you out of your misery,” she said, grabbing the mass of her own hair and moving it to the side, so he could see her face.

  


And then she kissed him. He closed his eyes and gave himself over to her lips.

  


  



End file.
